<p>This. Is. Hell.</p>
<p>4 APs+ The hardest math class in my school with the worst teacher (Not the highest level, but the consensus hardest) + Another honors.</p>
<p>How do you guys juggle your time so that you don’t spent 8 hours a night on homework and get 5 hours of sleep?</p>
<p>Good question. I do not have fond memories of my daughter’s senior year. I know she did not practice her string instrument at home during her senior year. She continued to take private lessons, and she loved her instructor, but she didn’t practice at home. She was still involved in orchestra at school and she worked on things during her lesson, but that was it. I did not nag or even say a word to her about it. I thought it was a good decision. There were only so many hours in the day, and she had to eliminate some things. My point is that you will need to cut out clutter from your life, cut back on some things that you enjoy, and just stay ahead of deadlines as much as possible. Try to get enough sleep because no one handles stress well when they are sleep deprived and accept what you cannot change i.e, hardest teacher. Don’t waste time complaining, it won’t change anything and the experience will prepare you for professors who may be brilliant but terrible instructors!</p>
<p>it’s hard. My Yalie took 5 AP’s in senior year and prepared for conservatory auditions too. I personally believe that you will never again be so overworked and overscheduled in your life as you were during Junior and Senior years in high school, if you are gunning for acceptance to a top school. I don’t necessarily think this is the wisest way to raise great leaders and intellects - I also don’t think it’s really done on purpose by those schools. It’s more like collateral damage from the selectivity and desirability of those top schools. </p>
<p>The good news is that you can choose to not get totally wrapped up in the need to get into an Ivy or bust. There are great schools out there where acceptance does not demand a crazy senior year - just a hard-working one.</p>
<p>Honestly, the worst year of my D’s life. On top of her school workload, EC’s, work etc., she also had to devote serious time to complete the college apps. Hopefully you are further ahead than she was at this point. Anyway look at it this way - you are running the “marathon” of college acceptance. The last few miles are the worst (senior year). Try, try, try to finish strong. Good Luck!</p>
<p>That’s… not too encouraging. 
In fact, I’m a Sophomore who’s just started, and will be increasing my AP count every single year. Wow. I think that this is a more stressful job than being an Investment Banker. On average, how long did your children spend on homework every night?</p>
<p>It was completely unmanagable. I crashed in the end but I did manage to keep my marks up just long enough.</p>
<p>Oh wow, thank god I’m not the only one going through this. . . That sounds just like my life…</p>
<p>If you think AP is hell, walk into the world of IB.</p>
<p>This is scaring me a bit. I have four APs plus one class that is more work than an ap, and I’m the president of Key Club at my school which is really, really active… yay? haha</p>
<p>OP: Everyone in this thread is referring to an extreme senior year courseload. If you’re killing yourself as a sophomore, to the point where you aren’t developing your ECs anymore, you really, really need to free up yours schedule. All of those crazy APs won’t get you into Yale. Strong ECs and the fact that you are a human being will.</p>
<p>don’t take APs just for the sake of being able to say that you took a lot of APs. If you overload yourself now, you might end up regretting it later on. </p>
<p>I can tell you that my last year (junior) was stressful enough. I basically had a senior schedule and I was in classes harder or equally as hard as than half of the graduating class. When you couple that with sports, clubs and other programs I am part of in my community, I was getting 4hrs of sleep on average, skipping lunch to study (and i don’t eat breakfast normally) and getting home late because of games or Youth court. A couple of times I got home well past midnight in the middle of the week because we had meets 3hrs away. And I only took 2 AP classes last year. You have to make sure you can balance everything. You still have 3 more years of high school left, why do you need to take the hardest classes now? Spread them out over the years. You don’t have to take every AP sophomore year. If you do this, you can take the classes, not feel overwhelmed and be able to get involved in other activities as well.</p>
<p>***? Just relax. All 5 of my core academic classes were APs last year, I worked, was a lead in the spring musical and fall play, was 1st chair violinist, varsity softball, president of French Club, etc. If you do things that you love, it really doesn’t seem like work. In regard to classes, I honestly never had to try super hard in any of them to get an A. If you’re taking classes that you hate just because they’re an AP, stop. You’re not going to have fun and you’re going to waste what should be an AMAZING year for you.</p>
<p>wow i guess ap classes may be easier where i went i had time for everything maybe youre taking them too seriously…idk</p>
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<p>My D is only a senior in HS and I don’t think she averaged more than 5 hrs of sleep on school nights last year as a junior. I don’t think she spent 8 hrs a night on HW, though. Probably 4-5 hrs. Lots of time on EC’s too. If you are a sophomore you really should try to develop your EC life. Don’t worry too much, do what you enjoy and you will find the strength to do it.</p>
<p>Really in my experience AP classes don’t provide a ridiculous workload. Just learn how to do the work efficiently and adequately; there is no reason to spend 8 hours a night on homework, ever. I skated through 2 APs last year doing at most an hour of homework a night (and usually much, much less) and got 5’s on the tests at the end of the year.</p>
<p>I only got a B average in those classes, but I figured the point of them was to succeed on the AP tests, and I accomplished my goals in that respect.</p>
<p>Junior year is extremely difficult for anyone who is aiming for a top school. I cringe every time I think about last year…IT WAS VERY HARD. The only truly difficult classes I had were AP Calculus BC, AP US History and somewhat AP Chemistry. I took 7 AP classes. I can tell you, whenever I had a Calc test, I would get home and study for like 13 hours. My teacher was insanely hard. On a good night, I got 4-5 hours of sleep, on a bad night I got like 2 hours. I mean, I did procrastinate towards the beginning of the year, but when things started heating up the only thing I really did was study with every minute I got. I have to tell you, if you’re looking for the easy way out, you are not going to find it. Taking 3+ APs, participating in extracurriculars and having somewhat of a relationship with your family and friends takes organization, motivation and discipline. It’s not for everyone…you have to give up a lot. But I mean, I survived, and even though I know senior year will probably be just as difficult (especially with scholarships and college apps) I know my strengths and how much I can take. You just got to know how to manage your time and not push yourself over the edge with stress!!</p>
<p>PS-AP week is excruciatingly painful.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>50freefly, that’s a message to your teacher to adjust the grading scale as well. It’s all about managing your time. Taking 4 AP classes is just preparing you for college, especially at a top university. It’s just that though, preparation and your individual schedule in college could be even harder. Now 7 + is extreme, but manageable even with some extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Regarding your math class, why not take the highest one then? Obviously a better teacher by your description.</p>
<p>In the end though, high school is hell when it comes to combining academics, extracurriculars, friend and family, and sleep. I completely agree with that. Sometimes sacrifices have to happen. For example, I didn’t get to eat dinner with or see my family for almost two weeks last April. I would wake up at 6, be at school before they woke up, go to tennis afterwards until 5, get some fast food to be back at the school at 5:30 for musical practice/ shows and then not get home until after 11 and everyone was asleep. I still has homework then. Also, in my case (I had a relatively easy high school) once I was accepted SCEA, I said screw AP tests and just did enough work for an A. I had major senioritis though!</p>
<p>i took 8 APs this year and 2 post-APs
it wasn’t bad o.O
you’ll do fine
some AP classes will be a joke, some might actually take some work
for most of my classes i just crammed before the test >_>
probably not the best for some people, but it worked for me
so hmm, if you’re a crammer then do that
if you’re a hardcore studier then make sure you learn the material during class?</p>
<p>It kind of varies from school to school. Many rigorous private schools try to make sure their students actually learn something in AP courses, rather than just learning how to do well on the AP exam.</p>
<p>I’m seeing alot of doom and gloom answers on this thread, but honestly I say it depends on what those APs are and how you can adjust to handle them.</p>
<p>I took 4 APs Junior and 6 APs Senior year, and I won’t lie, it takes a while to adjust to the classes. The main thing to do is to get yourself into the mental state for it. Yes there will be times where you have a ton of tests together, yes there will be times when a lot of the AP classes decide to give work at the same time; however, it has been my experiance (not necessarily true everywhere) that most teachers will give a reasonable ammount of time for most assignments.</p>
<p>That being said learn to PREcrasinate. When you get work do it as EARLY as possible. That way you are more able to adjust if there is more work assigned later on when you planned to do the original work or if some chance meeting or EC comes up. Budget your time well and remember never to leave anything for tomorrow that you could finish today.</p>
<p>Finally, make sure that you enjoy your EC. With a really heavy AP load plus ECs you won’t be having that much free time. If you do your ECs because you like them and not just because they might look better for college (which should be the case for almost all if not all of your activities) then you will have a good balance of fun and work. Remember academics are the work part, you should be having fun even while developing your extracurricular roles. Don’t stress about them too much!</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>